


Mouse of the Vale

by Marquise



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-06
Updated: 2011-07-06
Packaged: 2017-10-21 02:22:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marquise/pseuds/Marquise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alayne had never had a better teacher. Some Sansa/Petyr undertones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mouse of the Vale

Alyane tried her best to please her father. That is what good girls did and she, despite being bastard born and scorned, was a good girl. She had always been a good girl, this she knew—even in the past that seemed to fade more and more every day. The images were still there, and sometimes she could even remember smells and voices, the feel of her mother’s cheek—but there was a sense of detachment to it all, as though they were the memories of someone else.

And they were someone else’s memories, Sansa Stark’s memories, and she watched them all play out as one would a murmur’s show. Moved by what was presented to her, but not completely engaged. She could watch her first father hug her, and could smell the weirwoods and feel the rough North in his face, but whenever she watched that memory something clenched in her chest that kept her from moving on, from engulfing herself completely in it, and it was enough to stop her breath.

At first, she wasn’t quite sure what this strange sensation was. But lying in bed one night, playing out Sansa Stark’s memories (she couldn’t sleep, not with Sweetrobin kicking at her legs) it came to her with sudden clarity: it was fear for her survival that kept her from going in deeper. As long as she was detached, as long as she was Alayne of the Vale, she was nothing and nothing could harm her. And survival was the main reward of the game.

She had always been a survivor. She had been beaten down half a hundred times and yet here she was, alive and well. As long as she was Alayne she would remain so, and when the war was over she would rise above the ashes of those who sought to use and destroy her. They thought that she was stupid and in a way they were right, she had been stupid. But as her father had told her one night, cupping her chin and brushing her hair out of her eyes, that has been a gift. No one had worried too much about her or even thought of what she saw, and the gift for being unnoticed was the greatest gift in the game. She saw a lot, heard a lot, from her position underneath, and then she slipped through the cracks—not a little bird, but a mouse.

Mice couldn’t stay hidden forever though, but they could slip away so fast that only their disappearance would be noticed. And they could stay unnoticed for as long as needed, only to suddenly return without warning.

All this, her father explained, was why she must forget who she had been. If she clung too closely to Sansa Stark, she risked her disappearance being discovered before they were truly ready to surprise them. Emotions, he told her as he kissed her sweetly, were the most dangerous and powerful weapons in the game. They could turn even the most skilled player into nothing more than a pawn. But if she forgot, if she became someone new, she could make it so her emotions would never be used against her. She had to become a mouse again, a nothing designed to be overlooked. From this position she could continue to observe and grow, even if Sansa Stark was abandoned and disappeared into nothingness.

Alayne tried her best to please her father in this regard, forcing the break from the memories that could get her killed. In the name of survival she had to distance herself from everything she had been. She succeeded, for the most part, and felt her strength and confidence growing by the day. And her father’s pride in her, that grew as well, and she had to admit there were times when she was beginning to feel just as strong of a connection to him as to her first father. Her first father, the one of the North, had been kind and gentle but had never taken such an interest in teaching her, and never had he smiled so warmly as she practiced her skills. It had been a long time since someone had openly given her his approval.

Which is why Alayne felt it so painfully whenever she knew she failed to please her new father, when the terrors were too strong and she reverted back to Sansa Stark, alive but frightened in a way Alayne never was, and innocent in a way she hoped she had left behind. It was embarrassing, and even without him there she could feel his disapproval. In the mornings she could feel it, as they say down together to break their fast. She would have to try harder next time, would have to be more diligent in her lessons.

She had always been a good girl and had always performed her lessons well, but there was still so much to learn and so much she could do. Her survival, and the more immediate pleasure of his approval, was dependent on her playing her role. But she was a good girl and learned her lessons quickly. Now that she had a teacher who assured her of their importance and had placed all of his faith in her.

So the next time he hosted dinner and she stood to the side, serving wine and watching for the most understated movement only to be blindsided by her first father’s face, she remembered how he never took an interest in her stories like her new father did. It kept the wine from spilling out of her hands, and it kept her face a blank slate.

And when as she poured she happened to glance at her father and see his thin smile, her chest constricted but not, this time, from pain.


End file.
